Abbaye de Fontfroide in Narbonne

You're standing at Fontfroide Abbey, in a quiet valley in the Corbières hills, about fifteen kilometres south-west of Narbonne. The name comes from the Latin Fons frigidus, the cold spring. Have a look around. Plain stone buildings, hardly any decoration. That's exactly the point. The Cistercian monks believed in simplicity and poverty, and you can read that in the architecture.